A fire yesterday at the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, Calif., has forced the closure of the show floor. The fire started about Tuesday morning in the Santa Clara convention center.

An overhead sprinkler contained the blaze.

According to a worker for the show floor infrastructure provider, the sprinkler ran for about an hour before workers discovered the mishap. The booth underneath the blaze was heavily damaged, and there was water damage to some of the surrounding booths.

No one was injured.

According to the worker, the cause of the fire was an overloaded power strip that booth workers left under a pile of paper brochures. The exhibits were scheduled to open at 4pm on Aug. 9 but remained closed. They are now scheduled to open at noon on Aug. 10.

The Flash Memory Summit management released a statement this morning:

"Due to circumstances (a booth fire) beyond our control, the exhibits are closed for this evening," said the statement. "A final decision on the remaining scheduled exhibit hours will be made at 10am on Wednesday."

According to the worker, the show floor is unlikely to open Wednesday or Thursday because water entered the underfloor electrical distribution system.

THE STORAGE BITS TAKE

The Flash Memory Summit is squarely in the engine room of the flash storage revolution. Most attendees are engineers from companies building flash storage into products ranging from storage arrays to autonomous vehicles.

Many of the exhibitors are smaller companies offering cutting-edge technologies enabling next-generation products. It will be a bitter disappointment to them if they are unable to demonstrate their wares to Silicon Valley architects and engineers.

I'm at the Summit and will be personally disappointed if the show floor doesn't open. I was looking forward to seeing the latest from the NAND flash industry.

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